The following are applications in the same field showing the state of the art which are herein incorporated by reference:
1. Robot Calibration, U.S. Ser. No. 06/453,910, now abandoned.
2. Electro-Optical Systems for Control of Robots, Manipulator Arms and Coordinate Measuring Machines, or "Robots and Manipulator Arms", U.S. Ser. No. 592,443, filed Mar. 22,1984, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,602,163.
3. Robot Tractors U.S. Ser. No. 06/323,395, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,482,960.
4. Robot Tractors, Vehicles and Machinery, U.S Ser. No. 651,325, filed Sep. 17,1984, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,769,700.
5. Electro-optical sensor systems for thread and hole inspection U.S. Ser. No. 06/064,867, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,315,688.
6. Method and apparatus electro-optically determining the dimension, attitude and location of objects: U.S. Ser. No. 34,278.
7. Method and apparatus for determining physical characteristics of object and object surfaces: U.S. Ser. No. 06/015,792, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,373,804.
8. New photodetector array based optical measurement systems: U.S. Ser. No. 06/163,290, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,394,683.
9. Electro-optical inspection, U.S. Ser. No. 06/073,226, now abandoned.
10. Co-ordinate measuring method and device, U.S. Ser. No. 06/201,081, now abandoned.
11. Electro-optical sensors with fiber optic bundles, U.S. Ser. No. 06/173,370, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,441,817.
12. Electro-optical surface roughness measurement and control U.S. Ser. No. 06/240,459, now abandoned.
13. Apparatus for determining dimensions, U.S. Ser. No. 06/134,465, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,403,860.
14. High speed electro-optical inspection, U.S. Ser. No. 06/203,866, now abandoned.
15. Fiber optic based robot controls, U.S. Ser. No. 06/200,401, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,460,826.
16. Electro-optical sensors for machine tool and robotic inspection, U.S. Ser. No. 06/247,399, now abandoned.
17. Electro-optical systems for control of robots, manipulator arms and coordinate measurement machines U.S. Ser. No. 06/262,497, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,453,085.
18. Method and apparatus for determining wear or breakage of tools and other defects, U.S. Ser. No. 06/323,397, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,420,253.
19. Electro-optical systems for detection of leakage and blockage, U.S. Ser. No. 06/323,399, now abandoned.
20. Productivity improvement via robotic electro-optical part and tool inspection, U.S. Ser. No. 06/323,396, now abandoned.
21. Robot tractors, U.S. Ser. No. 06/323,395, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,482,960.
22. Method and apparatus for determining physical characteristics of object outer surfaces U.S. Ser. No. 06/015,614, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,326,808.
23. Method and apparatus for determining dimensional information concerning an object, U.S. Ser. No. 06/234,729, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,465,374 (division of U.S. Ser. No. 06/015,792, now U.S. Pat. No.4,305,661).
24. Method and apparatus for detection of surface deformities (division of Ser. No. 06/15,792) U.S. Ser. No. 06/234,728, now abandoned.
25. "Linear" continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 06/015,792, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,506,980.
26. "Circular" continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 06/015,792, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,465,374.
27. Optically controlled plumbing apparatus U.S. Ser. No. 06/029,840, now abandoned.
28. Optically controlled bathing systems U.S. Ser. No. 06/023,150, now abandoned.
29. Electro-optical and robotic casting quality assurance, U.S. Ser. No. 06/273,385, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,409,718.
30. Controlled machining of combustion chambers, gears and other surfaces including methods for obtaining correct combustion chamber volume in finished engine assemblies, U.S. Ser. No. 06/238,702, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,559,684.
Flexible robot assembly is often very difficult in the absence of machine vision sensors to guide the operation. Even with such sensors, operation must be both accurate, ultra reliable, and fast enough to be justifiable relative to human labor. These criteria are seldom met by present day vision systems employing arbitrary gray level images and the like.
The target based invention described in reference 1 above has wide application to the assembly process. Described therein are several embodiments illustrating target based techniques which can overcome the limitations of present systems. The key to the use of the disclosed systems is that the target points on the part are easily discernable and unambiguous, after processing using rapid devices and other high speed analysis software.
The target system functions well because it is based on high contrast images and mathematical equations. To use targets one must know the part feature data base relative to the target points on the part. Targets on tooling, pallets and fixed members may also be of use. Special retro reflective targets give best contrast, but targets can be holes, comers or other easily determined natural part features.
Finally, where special targets are used which would not normally be present, techniques are disclosed to make these unobtrusive.